


Wheel of Westeros Book One: Rise of Jon Part Two

by Thrafrau (annmcbee)



Series: Wheel of Westeros [7]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 18:00:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annmcbee/pseuds/Thrafrau
Summary: Jon is cast out of the Watch as a traitor and breaker of vows, but his destiny still awaits. Arya uses her skills to get closer to the Red Keep. Jon receives a message from Bear Island and a gift from Robb from beyond the grave, and Melisandre delivers a message of her own.





	Wheel of Westeros Book One: Rise of Jon Part Two

** _The Wheel of Westeros_ **

**Book One: Rise of Jon Part Two**

_Disclaimer:_

_This fan fiction is meant neither to be a continuation of George R. R. Martin’s _A Song of Ice and Fire_ series, nor a revision of seasons 6-8 of the HBO series, _Game of Thrones_. It is meant to stand alone, independent of those works, and can be read alone by those who have not seen the TV series or read the books. Having said that, this work will borrow from not only _Game of Thrones_ and _A Song of Ice and Fire, _but from multiple other works of film, television, music and literature. Please see footnotes for references, and feel free to point out any I’ve forgotten._

Chapter 1: Lord Snow

Outside the gates, Ghost paced back and forth in the snow, growling from deep in his chest, warmed hot by layers of fur and Jon’s anger. Lucky were these so-called brothers that the door they had made previously for him to come and go was now too small, for he now outsized a horse in height and certainly in width.

Inside Castle Black, Jon faced the points of several arrows and the cruel smirking face of Ser Alliser Thorne. His nemesis had returned at last from the South, and the disdain and hatred he always held for Jon was still there. He could have been among his murderers, and Jon wished he had been, so he could watch his blood flow over a block as well. Instead, he had come and rallied the Watch against him, so that he might take his place as Lord Commander. Well, he could have it.

“Go quietly, Lord Snow,” Thorne said with grim finality, “and we’ll let the Northern lords decide your fate as a breaker of vows and traitor to the Watch. Fight to stay, and you know how this ends.”

“Yes I know exactly how it ends,” said Jon. “You all think I didn’t remember…that I was already dead when they stabbed me twenty times in the back as lay defenseless with my face in the snow. But I was alive. I was alive when they stripped me naked and threw me in the rubbish pit and burned me like a pile of rotten turnips. I knew. I felt it all.”

Thorne’s bitterly smug face broke momentarily, but not as much as those of the black-cloaked sycophants standing behind him – for they knew what came after Jon was taken out of that pit.

“I don’t fear the end, Ser Alliser,” Jon continued. “But I won’t fight you. As much as I would relish driving Longclaw through your black heart, I won’t fight to stay in this dying brotherhood – if you can still call it that. My enemies are not the Freefolk, it’s true. My enemies are further north.” He yanked off his black cloak for the last time and flung it into the snow. “If the North decide I should die, very well. May the Others take you all.”

He spat in the snow, a bloody gob that had been gathering in his cheek from a cut left over after Hardhome. Then he turned and stomped off toward his quarters to gather what few possessions he could take to wherever he was going. Cuger and that limp-dick Jeren scuttled to his side as if to escort him, and Jon would have clobbered one and put a dent in the other, but at that moment Ser Davos Seaworth and Devan dashed over, and with a gentle motion of his fingerless hand, Davos held the potentially doomed escorts aside.

“Don’t worry lads – we’ll see him out well enough…”

Cuger and Jeren looked at one another and did the wiser thing. When they had gone, Devan Seaworth said quietly in Jon’s ear, “Don’t despair, my lord. Many of your brothers are with you – they will make themselves known before long.”

“Will it be in time to protect the Freefolk in my charge? Will it be enough?”

Thorne had agreed to keep on hand those Freefolk who had been assigned to posts already, but the Watch would take no more, and that included the three hundred and some that had come with him all the way from Hardhome. They were camped a mile north of the Wall where Thorne’s toadies had stopped them, and the longer they stayed there the greater the chance that they would soon become meat for the army of the dead. But Jon didn’t trust in the safety of any of the Freefolk in Thorne’s hands. Perhaps they would be slaughtered, the women raped, the children made into slaves. _Would Thorne be that low,_ Jon wondered?

When they got to his chambers, Jon turned to Davos and Devan and told them to fetch his little brother and Osha, and explain what happened. “Tell Tormund Giantsbane to meet me at the gate. Edd Tollett will ride toward Long Barrow with the spearwives in the morning…I want the Hardhome Freefolk to follow him. Iron Emmett is in command there, and I trust him to do what’s right. And tell no one. No one.”

“Yes my lord,” Devan said.

“I’m no lord young Seaworth,” Jon said sadly. “I’m nothing now.”

“How can you say that? After…”

Jon put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Best place your loyalty elsewhere. Place it with me and the gods will abandon you…”

“Those aren’t my gods…” Devan said, and turned to walk away.

Davos lingered a moment. “I can’t speak for the gods, Jon. But know this: you haven’t been abandoned. Not yet.” Then Davos took his leave as well.

Chapter 2: Pretty Mercy

As Mercy, Arya was finding it hard to ignore the pain in her big toes as she slid along the wall into a shadowy corner in Cobbler’s Square, just below where the two gold cloaks stood on their nightly watch. She watched as one of them snorted long and hard before hacking a glob of mucus of the wall where he and his partner stood. It landed with a loud splat just a couple of feet from where Arya stood. She glowered with disdain at these foul want-to-be-soldiers with their black armor and shiny golden helmets. Most of them weren’t worth the phlegm in their throats. Thanks to years of corruption under Robert’s and Cersei’s rule, half of the City Watch had stolen their positions rather than earned them. Before the destruction of the Sept and Margaery’s death, there were at least of good number of Highgarden soldiers among them – not the strongest fighters but honorable in their way. But now? These lot – Arya could only see any value in their dead corpses.

Arya wriggled a painful toe inside her shoe. A limp would not make for a good diversion. The original plan was to make eyes at one of them as Mercy, and lure him into a dark corner before driving the sharp end of Needle deep into his throat. But this wasn’t like the Fishmonger’s son, Tormy, who she’d brought to her bed after seeing him bully a poor little boy who was begging. He was dark-haired and muscled and handsome, if a drunken, heartless, brainless arse. Mercy was no virgin, but Arya had been, and despite the obvious ineptitude of Tormy in the sack, she was surprised to find she really quite enjoyed herself. Later, after she had garroted him and taken his face, she found herself thinking about sex nearly all the time. She would try to imagine Jaqen on top of her, inside her, hips moving up and down, groaning. But that seemed so unlike him, and instead she found herself picturing Gendry, an old friend and traveling companion from a time Arya though little about, who had once lived in this very square where she now stood. She wondered what had ever happened to Gendry…was he still with the Brotherhood? Was he still handsome? Surely he looked better than the gold cloak she had marked, whose nose looked like someone had kicked it.

Tormy then. She reached up to her forehead and drew her palm over Mercy’s face, which now became that of Tormy, the fishmonger’s drunk of a son. It was risky…the old blind fishmonger had, ironically, a powerful sense of smell, and Tormy was supposed to be off on a bender somewhere instead of working – although the fish stand was a great way to earn some disposable coin in addition to staking out her way into the Keep. But a better plan would come out of being drunken bully Tormy instead of Pretty Mercy, and _the damned toe_…

After the Sept of Baelor was demolished by wildfire, there was a silent imperative to end the depiction of Margaery in the _Beacon Street Mummers’_ nightly performances. It was imposed upon them to draw attention away from the late queen, in order that too much heat didn’t fall upon Cersei, who was obviously the culprit. Instead, she and Merry had written a fantastical production in which the current queen, Myrcella Baratheon, played by Mercy, is beset by the threat of her mad uncle Stannis and his red witch, played by Merry. Then there was wicked murderous crone Olenna Tyrell, who had taken credit at last for King Joffrey’s death, and the foreign pretender plotting his invasion, and last but not least, Sansa Stark. Sansa may not have poured the poison into Joffrey’s cup, but in their play, she certainly bewitched the old crone into doing the deed. At night, the red-haired lady of the North turned into a wolf with wings like a bat’s who flew into people’s dreams so they might do her bidding. Mercy also played Sansa, and they used a cloud of smoke to conceal her so another actor dressed in a wolf suit could take her position. Arya would have loved to play the wolf part, but it wasn’t possible, any more than it was possible that the real Sansa was anywhere near this interesting. So she played Sansa, but because Mercy was so short compared to the real thing, she had to wear special slippers with very tall heels, and the big toes on both her feet were paying the price.

Playing Sansa did make Arya think a lot about the real Sansa, her sister. Though they had never gotten along, Arya held onto the hope that she was still alive. Of course, even now that she was cleared of the responsibility for Joffrey’s murder, it was best for her to lay low, wherever she was. The Bolton bastard who now held Winterfell was just as much a threat as Cersei. She had actually heard that her cousin Robert had died, leaving the Vale to Harrold Hardyng, and he had wed the bastard daughter of Petyr Baelish. Arya wondered, since when did Littlefinger have a daughter?

Arya and Merry wrote a scene in which Sansa and the Red Witch got together to cook up of poisonous magic brew that would bring poor innocent Myrcella’s rule to an end. They sang a duet that went like this:

MELISANDRE: Round about the cauldron go!

SANSA: In the poisoned entrails throw!

MELISANDRE: Toad that under cold stone…

SANSA: days and nights has thirty-one…

MELISANDRE: sweltered venom sleeping got!

SANSA: Boil thou first in the charmed pot![1]

It was hilarious to perform, and such fun…but often Arya often caught herself weeping after.

Tormy the fishmonger’s son sprawled himself out on the filthy cobblestones, his legs flailing drunkenly out of the shadows that drenched Arya’s corner. At the top of his voice, he sang with a lolling, slurred tongue_, fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake, eye of newt and toe of frooooggg, wool of bat and tongue of doooooggg!**[2]** _She continued to sing in Tormy’s awful voice until several residents of Flea Bottom could be heard hollering out their windows for him to shut up for the sake of all the gods. Finally, one of the gold cloaks, the one with the ugly nose, who must have lost the roll of the dice, came trudging down the steps to address the situation. Tormy bobbed and weaved over the cobblestones, ducking into an alley as if to get sick. When the gold cloak followed, Needle was waiting for him. Moments later, Orny the gold cloak would rejoin his friend. They would report to the barracks at dawn, and Arya, wearing Orny’s face, would be that much closer to making Cersei pay for what she had done.

Chapter 3: The Black Bastard of the Wall

The large bundle on top of Jon’s bed was tied with string, and Jeor Mormont’s raven stood on it. When Jon closed the door behind him, the Old Bear’s friend flapped his enormous wings and called _Snow! Snow!_ Jon had thought the big black bird had finally flown away after his killers had done their deed. He hadn’t seen it since that night.

“Still around, friend?”

“Friend!”

“And you brought me a gift…how kind.”

“Gift!”

Satin, who was to replace Edd as his steward before he’d been cast out, had prepared a meal for Jon and left it at his table, the last meal he would ever have at Castle Black: a hunk of hard cheese, a slice of oat bread, a couple of small apples and a bowl of turnip-and-rabbit stew still steaming. Next to it was a tankard of ale so full that Jon would spill it if he picked it up. He took one of the apples and broke it in two with his hands, then gave one half to the bird before shooing him off of the bundle. While the raven ate, he untied the string and unwrapped the cloak that held the bundle together. A familiar smell wafted into his nose, and with a shock of sorrow, he realized that cloak had been his brother Robb’s. Inside were his boots and his wolf-engraved breastplate, as well as a Mormont shield with the sigil of the black bear on it, and a note.

_Jon Snow,_

_Your brother, the King in the North, wished for you to have this and other important items. If your duties permit, you are invited to Bear Island where you might retrieve them in person, as they are not fit to send along. The shield is a gift from our house to you…a token of good will and of fealty. We look forward to your arrival._

_Alysane Mormont, Lady of Bear Island_

The tears began to fly from Jon’s eyes before he could stop them. He wiped them away with the corner of Robb’s grey cloak, the smell of Winterfell filling his nostrils. But the note was confusing. Why fealty? What could Robb want him to have that couldn’t be sent? Perhaps they meant to fight for him, to help him take back Winterfell. Whatever was meant, Jon would go as invited, and face the consequences when House Mormont learned he’d been banished as a traitor.

“Well friend. I suppose we’ll make a trip to your master’s home together…what do you think of that?”

“Home Jon Snow! Home!”

Jon tossed him the other half of the apple and then bundled up everything he would need to travel to the Bay of Ice. Satin had also packed up enough dried meat, cheese and bread for a short journey. Jon had taken off his tunic in order to add a layer of fur over his shirt, when there was a knock at the door. The lady Melisandre announced herself from outside. Jon invited her in, in spite of his better instincts about the Red Witch, who he thought would have left with Queen Selyse and her men already. He had to know why she brought him back, only to be sent to hell anyway.

Melisandre brought a glowing warmth into the room with her. Her piles of fire-red hair were braided about her head, revealing a white, smooth neck and chest. Jon could not keep himself from glancing at her breasts beneath a soft crimson robe, the belt of which was cinched tightly around her slim waist. Her eyes and the ruby she wore at her throat caught the light from the hearth in a way that brought him chills.

“What can I do for you, my lady?”

“I want to ask the same of you, Jon Snow. I and the queen have been told of your banishment. We’d like to offer you passage to your destiny. We can have a ship waiting at your disposal.”

“That’s kind, my lady. But unless your ship can sail around Westeros to the Bay of Ice, I can’t use it. I’m to Bear Island at invitation by the Lady Mormont herself.”

Melisandre tilted her head to one side. “Bear Island? Why?”

“Not that it’s any of your concern, but Robb has left me some effects they wish me to retrieve there.”

“What could you possibly use that your brother left behind?”

“King! King!” The raven hopped onto the mantle above the hearth, flapping his wings frantically. Melisandre eyed him curiously and walked toward him. She petted his feathers very gently, and he calmed down. Jon too stared with curiosity at the bird. It was so odd what came out of that black beak at times. Melisandre turned again to face Jon.

“Your dismissal here means the end of the Night’s Watch, Jon Snow. Your destiny lies over the Narrow Sea. Leave this frozen land behind and sail with me to Essos.”

“What are you talking about? I can’t go across the sea with you or anyone. The dead are coming here, and the Night’s Watch must go on, or the Others will take this country head by head. The Wall is all that stands between us, and if they find a way through, someone needs to fight them. _That_ is my destiny, my lady…”

“You’re right…and you will fight the Others. When the time comes, the Wall will fail. The Night’s Watch will fall. You will lead the charge against them. You and one other.”

“It’s true then that Stannis lives. But how can I lead the charge from Essos?”

“You and Stannis will be lost without the help of Daenerys Targaryen, the queen across the sea. I have seen her in the flames… with you.”

“I’ve received no word from the Targaryen queen. For all I know she doesn’t even exist.”

Melisandre came closer, reaching into the folds of her robe and pulling a scroll from between her breasts.

“This arrived while you were at Skagos. I retrieved it before Ser Thorne could get his foul hands upon it. It was meant for you.”

Jon took the scroll and unrolled it. It read:

_Dear Jon Snow,_

_I have received your letter calling for aid in the fight against the Others, and would have dismissed it but for the sincerity it conveyed. If what you say is true, then I must set aside my current concerns and rush to help with your fight. I have seen much that would defy belief, much that might be said to only exist in legends and stories. I am inclined to believe you, Jon Snow. However, you will understand if I must verify certain truths before offering myself and my dragons to such risks as you describe. I hereby summon you to the city of Mereen, to present yourself before me, that I might confirm this is not a trick of my enemies. Do so and make your case, and I will do whatever it takes to protect my homeland from whatever threat lies beyond the Wall. _

_Sincerely, _

_Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Queen of the Free Cities, Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, and Breaker of Chains_

“So she calls herself queen of the free cities already,” Jon muttered. “Her dragons must indeed be real for her to have such confidence,” Jon said.

“Oh they’re real, Jon Snow. And they’re our only chance of survival,” said Melisandre.

“I can’t sail across the Narrow Sea…certainly not to meet with the daughter of the man who burned by grandfather and uncle alive. This sounds like a trap to me, and there’s no time for this journey anyway. I need to get Winterfell back for my little brother. I need to gather an army. I can’t do that from Mereen.”

“It’s true that you face powerful enemies – human enemies. Daenerys does as well. You have more in common with her than you may think…”

“Enemies!” Jeor’s raven cried from the mantle.

Melisandre came closer still, until she stood with her face mere inches away from him. Jon breathed her scent in deep: darkness, danger, fire. But also sweetness…there was something of the sea in her smell, and of the last sunlight of autumn. She placed a warm hand on his chest, weaving her fingers beneath the laces of his shirt until they found a scar left by his murderers – a sickle-shaped one right at his heart. Jon quickly snatched her little hand in his. Melisandre didn’t wince but lifted her eyes to his.

“Strange that the scars remained but your hair…”

Jon didn’t let go of her hand. “Why did you do it? Why bring me back if not to save my people? If not to serve the Watch…”

“I brought no one back, Jon Snow. This was the work of older gods, crueler gods than mine.”

“Crueler than your god? I find that hard to believe.”

“Ask your young steward, the beautiful boy from Oldtown, what gods I mean.”

Jon wrinkled his brow and slowly let loose her hand. It slipped from his fingers to his cheek…so warm he found himself tilting into it. Melisandre stepped forward and pressed her body against him, one leg slipping between his. Her breasts were very firm and heavy. Jon’s hand fell to her hip. His mouth watered, and his member sprung to life in his trousers.

“Let me show you what you’re fighting for,” Melisandre whispered, her breath drifting into his mouth.

“You’re going to show me some vision in the fire?”

“No visions. No magic. Just life…”

She untied the belt of her robe and let it hang open, taking his hand and placing it against the bare skin of her hip. It felt like silk. Jon felt his skin come alive. He let his hand slide along her middle and up to her breast.

“Do you feel my heart beating?”

Jon nodded. He knew he wouldn’t be able to resist her. Since his return from the dead, there were certain occasions for which his body took total dominion over his mind. Food. The call of the moon at night when he should be sleeping. The blood flowing from the wounds of evil men. And this.

“There’s power in you,” Melisandre said. “You resist it, and that’s your mistake. We were made male and female…two parts of a greater whole, now joined in power. Power to make life…power to make light…”[3]

She brought her lips to his and he kissed her softly but deeply, tasting her tongue and gently kneading the flesh of her breast in his hand. He halted momentarily, thinking maybe it wasn’t too late to stop himself, but he met her eyes and they held him. Then his shirt and her robe were in a pile on the floor, and his breeches were open. His hands explored her all over, her belly, breasts, backside, between her backside cheeks, between her legs. She pulled him on top of her on his bed, and he slid inside her and began thrusting like an animal. He bit into her throat, causing her to cry out, but not hard enough to break the skin. He was given over to his body entirely, his heartbeat and his breathing the only reason left to him. The buildup to climax descended upon him, and then he heard the raven from the corner of the room._ King, _it said. _King!_ With every bit of strength left in his mind, the mental equivalent of ripping one’s own arm off, Jon withdrew himself from her and stepped away.

“No!” Jon shouted. “I won’t.”

“Come back lover…” Melisandre said breathlessly, her arms outstretched.

“No I will not.”

He laced up his breeches as best he could, painfully, and grabbed Melisandre’s robe off the floor.

“Ser Davos told me about Stannis…and Renly…” He tossed the robe on top of her, covering her nakedness. “That you lay with Stannis and birthed a shadow that murdered his brother Renly Baratheon in his tent. I will have no part of it. I will deal with my enemies in my own way.”

Melisandre smiled and stood, tying her robe around her.

“Very well, Jon Snow. Your fate is in your hands. As is the fate of us all.”

Jon opened his door and held it for her as she slipped out. When she was gone, he sat on the bed, his groin throbbing. He didn’t have the black commander’s cloak to howl into, so he used his brother’s instead.

[1] From Shakespeare’s _MacBeth_.

[2] _MacBeth_, same: Act IV Scene I…

[3] Benioff, David and D.B. Weiss. _Game of Thrones_. Season 5, Episode 4: “Sons of the Harpy”.


End file.
